Suspending Students Never Helps Them

In 1985, Universal Pictures released The Breakfast Club, a coming-of-age film that followed five high school students serving an all-day Saturday suspension. The film focused on cliques and how each student, a member of a different clique, came to realize that they weren’t that different from their fellow classmates. In one scene, the school rebel John Bender, played by Judd Nelson, racks up multiple back-to-back suspensions during an intense exchange with the Assistant Principal. Decades later, educators understand that it’s better to seek an alternative to suspension.

Why Kids Rebel

Rarely do children rebel without reason. Even a two-year-old throwing a temper tantrum has an underlying want or need. This is why he or she acts out. The same holds true for young adults. They must feel as if their wants and needs are taken into account, especially when it comes to their education. They need to build their skill set in a fair, positive and specific manner suited to their needs. Otherwise, they will lash out and rake up multiple suspensions and possibly expulsion.

It Isn’t Just About Brains

One thing The Breakfast Club showed brilliantly was even the smart kid could get suspended. People place too much emphasis on IQ, and this ignores two crucial elements to a person’s ability to learn: social and emotional status. In The Breakfast Club, moviegoers saw that Bender was abused by both of his parents, yet they also learned that the “perfect” parents of Brian Ralph Johnson – the brain – pushed him too hard, and he finally snaps. There is much more to learning than IQ.

External Considerations

An alternative to student suspension looks at these external factors. Why is a student bullying, cheating, disrespecting authority, fighting, lying, vandalizing and/or even committing hate crimes? Once this external factor is identified, steps can be taken to provide the discipline the students needs via positive support. This alternative to suspension proves more effective than removing the student from the very education that could save his or her life.

It only takes five steps to help a student overcome disruptive and destructive behavior. You must identify a student’s strengths and focus on them, detail why the student’s behavior caused trouble, encourage the student to determine why he or she acted that way, build up additional strengths to help control the behavior, and encourage the student to track his or her progress. When you use this alternative to suspension, you tell as student he or she matters, which is the first step in giving him or her life skills they need to exceed in education and beyond.